Search form

Search

Five easy ways to shape up your home

Poppy Watt

June 20, 2018

Five easy ways to shape up your home

Have home improvement programmes left you longing to live somewhere better? Does a busy life, a limited budget and a lack of strong decorating skills make you feel as if it’s hopeless? Not so. There are, in fact, some easy ways that you can make your home look much more impressive. You just need to be willing to give them a try.

Give it a fresh coat of paint

A bit of paint can fix up all sorts of things: walls, ceilings, kitchen cabinets, doors, and radiators. In recent years new paint technologies have seen all sorts of new colours appear on the market, and you can even get metallic or sparkly paints if you want to – great for artistic paint jobs or trim. Wipe-clean paints are great for kitchens and children’s rooms. Just remember to use tape to help protect the edges of the area you want to paint and put down sheets to catch any drips.

Revamp your windows

Repainting frames and getting rid of saggy old curtains can bring your windows back to life. Try adding window shutters to give them a new, more elegant look that also gives you more control over the way light enters rooms. You don’t need to add an extra layer of glazing to improve their insulating qualities – simply taking the time to fill in tiny cracks around the frames can make a surprising amount of difference.

Refresh kitchen and bathroom tiles

Retiling a whole room is a big job, but there are several simpler ways you can improve the look of your bathroom or kitchen. Simply replacing old, stained caulk or grout will really brighten them up. Replacing a row of tiles to add a border can create a very different look. You can also try adding a new splashback behind your washbasin or sink – mosaic tiles are great for this and make it easy for you to be creative.

Fix your floors

There’s a lot you can do to improve the look of your floors with relatively little trouble. Deep cleaning your carpets with carpet shampoo will restore their colour and make them feel much softer underfoot. Adding rugs can help you create a new look to suit any style – try animal themed rugs for children’s rooms, geometric ones for a modern effect or sheepskin for a touch of luxury. If you have bare boards in some rooms, try a new tinted wax to smarten them up.

Modernise your lighting

Making the switch to LED lighting is good for the environment and, as other forms of lighting are gradually being phased out, it’s something you’ll have to get around to doing sooner or later. Although the bulbs cost more they can last for over a decade and they give you a lot more control over brightness and colour. Some even change colour and come with remote controls that let you create precisely the atmosphere you want at any given time.

These simple changes can let you see your home in a whole new way and fall in love with it all over again.